


No Cervitaurs in Oregon

by TedizStalker



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reverse Falls (Gravity Falls), Gen, Heavy inspiration/influence from Alice: Madness Returns, It's packed with cringy reference don't mind me, Stories from a Bear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28521843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TedizStalker/pseuds/TedizStalker
Summary: The cost of forgetting is high.The damage dealt to those who never deserved it is irreversible.As Mason Gleeful's sanity spirals out of control, his slave, whom he has completely forgotten that he had ownership over, sits back and watches with sadistic glee.Will Cipher had never been so happier. Though not yet free, this constellation prize is worth the wait out.
Kudos: 6





	1. Fires of Amnesia

**Author's Note:**

> A Reverse Falls take on Bill Cipher's death, but not before Will's own sanity breaks.
> 
> Also, Alice: Madness Returns is a heavy influence to the next leg in this chapter. I don't know where I will go with this, but if you want more, let me know, though it's a little lower on the priority list, so don't expect frequent updates like I have in the past.
> 
> Ratings and tags may change later along the line.

“Guess what? I can finally, _finally_ say this to your face, ‘Master’; _The deal’s off!_ ”

The door slams shut behind the light blue dream demon at these words, and a bright fire engulfs that and the walls to Mason’s orderly mind.

“What? Oh no, no, no, no!” The Gleeful twin muttered, watching everything go up in flames. He was already forgetting one or two things. Why did he agree to shake his hand?

“Oh yes, Master. I’m going down. I’m getting erased, and I’m taking your memories of me with me!” the once timid, fearful demon made a finger gun and pointed it at the side of his top hat. “Memory gun. Pretty clever, huh?”  
For the first time since he was tricked into their servitude, Will had never felt so much happier. Give or take a few more minutes, he will finally be free.

“You idiot! Don’t you realize that there are others besides myself who will remember you?! When they remind me of who you are, you will be punished for it!” Mason screamed, fear beginning to build up in his once cold and cruel tone.

“You’re forgetting that Weirdmaggedon is tied to _my_ existence, _my_ magic, not yours! It’s not just your memories that will get erased alongside me; Everything and everyone who have ever been influenced by my magic through _you_ will either forget about this event, or be purged off the face of this illusion as well!”

“Make it stop! I demand you, useless demon! Make! It! _STOP!_ ”

A blast of magic shot from Will’s hand once Mason got too close, making the panicking boy stagger back.

“Maybe the memory gun is working much faster than I anticipated. Have you already forgotten that it’s _my_ magic you have been using?”

An onset of panic grips Mason as he begins to pace within the confines of his rapidly disintegrating mindscape. Will only glared with disgust.

“Look at me. _Look at me, you abomination of nature!_ ” Will scowled, never having used that tone since he came into his own existence, hovering at Mason’s eye level, “You’re a real clever boy, even being able to trick me into servitude. But you made one fatal mistake; You messed with the _remains of Bill Cipher’s conscience!_ And now, thanks to you and your family, my patience has _expired,_ my sanity has been irreversibly _fractured! Just like my source of origin, just like your memories! I hope you’re proud of yourself, ‘Master’!_ ”

“You’re going to give up your life just to get back at me?! At my sister?! If it’s freedom you want, I’ll give it to you, I swear! Just tell the person outside to make it stop!”

A hand rests on the other’s lips. The single eye that once shed many tears still had a narrow slit for a pupil, another rare trait from Will.

“I can’t leave now even if I wanted to.” his eyelid closed, doing a slight motion to show that if he had a head, he would be shaking it, “You’re bargaining with magic you had no birthright to, ‘Master’.” the dream demon cooed, well aware that it was getting harder for him to keep his form together by the second, “I believe absolutely nothing you have left to say; my trust in you is nonexistent. I don’t want money, fame, riches, infinite power, or a hologram of my own. I just want to be _gone._ I want to leave with my soul, leave your mind and body cold. And if it means erasing everything about me, so be it.”

“Will… please.”

A weight began to set fast in the Gleeful’s heart. Was it the guilt for all the things he had inflicted on Will in the past, or was it that he was losing everything in the flash fire of the memory gun? He shudders as the blue demon floats back further into the flames.

“You dare call me by my name now?” A mix of hurt and disgust lingered in the tone of his question, his form gives another abrupt warp of appearance as he begins to recite his chant in reverse.

_“eman ym rebmemer llahs enooN_   
_etunim htneetriht eht yb tuB_   
_yad eno nruter lliw I_   
_LTOLOXA”_

A look of agony crossed the dream demon as he formed a gun made of blue fire, levelled at his own eyeball.

“Magic is tragic, isn’t it? Goodbye, Mason.”

A resounding bang. The blue bricks crumble apart as a black ooze floods from the deflated eyeball and into the enclosed space, adding fuel to the fire rather than douse it.

Mason had only a few seconds left; the memory of the dream demon’s name rapidly slipping from him, but he felt compelled to yell it out as the fires of amnesia began to consume him. An arm stretches out at the sinking remains of the blue bricks in the black murk that is already set ablaze.

“ ** _WILL!!!_** ”

~~

The fire.

The fire that was eerily contained in the deepest part of the woods of Oregon, and within it, a small town. Gravity Falls.

The fire started off as blue.

No one survived.

No one, except a boy.

His rich grunkles. Gone.

His twin sister. Gone.

A dream demon of baby blue. Without a trace.

Some say he had gone thoroughly insane as a result of this traumatic ordeal.

But the fire. The fire that took off without any force of nature capable of stopping it. It was the peak of the summer holidays after all, and certainly at its driest.

He had the whole world, no, the whole _universe_ within his grasp during the initiation of Weirdmageddon. But one deal with the wrong demon later, and it all came crashing apart.

Gravity Falls isn’t there anymore.

And neither is the once rich cervitaur.

_‘No._

_Forget about Gravity Falls._

_Forget about the fire._

_Go to the Dreamscape.’_

“I’d rather not. My mind is shattered.”

_‘I care not what you want. Go to the Dreamscape.’_

Reluctantly, Mason obeyed.

_‘What do you see?’_

“I see… that I’m in a boat, on the lake. With an unfamiliar face. The landscape lacks color.”

Mason replied, keeping his focus on the visage.

“Now that I’m getting a better look… some things have changed.”

_‘Change is good.’_

“Change denotes neither bad nor good, but it certainly does mean ‘not the same’.”

A voice from the blue triangle in the boat with him chimed in his two cents as he was seemingly able to sip on his tea.

“You don’t sound too good.” Mason mumbles, watching an eyelid form on the triangle, opening up with a narrow pupil. The look the triangle gave him held only a little light of recognition.

And glee? Sadistic glee? Why was it looking at him like this?

_‘I don’t?’_

“Are you alright? Are you mad?”

_‘This is not about me.’_

“Blue demon, are you okay?”

The dream demon only blinks, curious. Beads of black tears pool at the bottom eyelid.

_‘Blue demon? That’s not right. What is he doing there?’_

“Is something wrong?”

Mason instinctively reaches out towards the triangle as the black ooze gets worse.

“Something wrong? _Rather…!_ ”

The dream demon gurgled at his last word, a resounding bang punching a hole in his eyeball. At this, a fountain of goo erupted from him, tainting the water, tainting the land.

“No… not that!”

Mason always hated the feeling of powerlessness, but here he was. At the mercy of both his innermost demon, and the therapist outside.

_‘Don’t struggle, Mason; let the change take place.’_

“No…! Weirdmageddon… Gravity Falls! The pollution, corruption… my Dreamscape, it’s killing me! My mind is fractured beyond recognition!”

At this point, the Dreamscape was no longer muted, instead gaining shades of red. Blood red. The remains of the demon had long since sunk under the sea of its own making.

_‘Forget it, Mason.’_

Hadn’t he forgotten enough? The fires of amnesia burst to life on the sea of black goo. The demon’s blood.

_‘Block that dream.’_

Tiny, black hands of the goo with narrow arms reach up and start scratching at his face.

_‘Awake at the sound of…’_

“My magic was _never_ your birthright, _‘Master’!_ ”

A hand on fire dove for Mason’s screaming mouth, but the sound of the alarm cuts through the visage.

~~

“There now, Mason. Better, aren’t we?”

The surviving Gleeful twin gave a hard cough. “My head feels like broken glass, and there’s a hydraulic press in my chest…”

“Well, the cost of forgetting is high.”

“I thought I already forgot enough.” Mason argues weakly, “I was hit with the memory gun, which was what I was told when I-”

“And how many times have I told you? No such invention exists.” The therapist argued back, annoyingly calm and collected as ever. “All you can do in the meantime is remember other things.”

“I want to forget. Who would choose to be alone, imprisoned with these broken memories?”

~~

 _‘Why would you want to forget, again?’_ the faint echoes of a familiar voice long forgotten lingers as Mason lied in his bed that night. _‘He says that he will set you free, but I don’t see that happening in the future. You’re trapped, in chains by higher powers whose authority far surpasses your own. Just like I was.’_

“At least, should I forget again, I’ll certainly won’t have you around to torment me.” Mason muttered to himself. Should he close his eyelids, he would see the blue triangle behind them.

 _‘Oh, if only it was_ that _simple, ‘Master’.’_

The Gleeful frowned as he turned to rest on a side in his bed.

_‘You, along with three of your late relatives, each held a chain that kept me tied down. I’ll be free as soon as you are dead, so you can rest assured with that knowledge.’_

“Oh boy, I can’t wait.” Mason muttered rather sarcastically under his breath, “I’d hate to see the poor soul who would have to deal with you next. Glad I won’t be around to see it. And besides… why is it that you call me ‘Master’?”

 _‘Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.’_ the dream demon chides back, _‘But let me ask one now; is there a weight of guilt in your heart anytime you lay your eyes on me, regardless on how much you can recall? If so? Good.’_

Mason heaved another sigh. Yes, there is a weight. No, he doesn’t know why it lingers.

“…What is your name?”

A pause, long enough to make the silence of the static ring in his ear, before his mental rent-free tenant spoke up again.

_‘That’s for me to withhold and for you to figure it out on your own.’_

“Then… how do I get you to spit out your name sooner?”

The dream demon opens his eye. The lack of tears welling felt a little off settling for Mason.

_‘Trust no one. Document everything. Real or illusionary. Scientifically proven or Supernatural. Tomorrow is as good as any to start, ‘Master’. After all, as my source of origin once said; Reality is an Illusion. The Universe is a Hologram. Buy Gold.’_


	2. Eye for an Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's an unfamiliar feeling, when someone with power and authority has control over Mason Gleeful.
> 
> Blinded by his disdain to anything weak, himself included, it's not until too late does he realize the dangers within his mind have been set into motion. The first of which involves dragging his attention away from reality.
> 
> The demon without a name has tried to warn him...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Supernatural by Ken Ashcorp plays a massive role in the inspiration department, if you can't tell.

What was once a cruel young boy, with powers and ambitions to attain more power by any means necessary, has grown into a teen. A hollowed shell of himself. A hollowed shell with chains linking him to authority figures. And he is powerless to shake them off.

He was still deemed psychotic. He had to see a therapist every week or so, else he would be thrown into the asylum.

He was still a teenager. He had to go to school, else he would be held back by a year before they consider him mature enough to be independent.

He was still human. He had to go to bed at night, else he would be beyond too tired to be focused on anything during the daylight hours.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If Mason cannot see, then he cannot find the clues that the blue dream demon continues to leave littered in his Dreamscape.

~~

_‘Trust no one. Document everything.’_

Those were the last words that the dream demon had said to him, about two years ago from today.

Considering his circumstances, Mason came to the realization that he was indeed a prisoner in his own mind. And his supposed slave, being an inmate, ran the mental asylum, whether both would acknowledge it or not. As a prisoner to both his brain and to the authority figures laying down the lockstep road to the unknown, the first thing he had to do was find something he could be in control of, however miniscule.

Writing his own entries in the first of his journals would be a good start to regaining control, as per the demon’s suggestion. When the fires consumed everything that night, the old journals were lost to the flames as well. _He_ wasn’t lying when _he_ said that if _he_ wanted to be forgotten in all of _his_ entirety, then _everything_ and _everyone_ who have ever been influenced by the demon’s magic through Mason will either forget about this event, or be purged off the face of this illusion.

And by ‘illusion’, the demon meant ‘reality’.

The old journals were purged.

So were the humans caught up in Weirdmaggedon.

Mason was the only survivor, and nobody believed a word he said.

~~

“You know, my source of origin was a compulsive liar.” the triangular dream demon of blue said, nonchalant. His tone held a faux naivety that grinded on his Master’s nerves. “Yet he had ways to sound like he was honest to a ‘T’ when he really needs some lowly schmuck to do exactly what he wants. Kind of like you.”

“And how do you know that?” Mason drawled, having reluctantly dozed off in front of his desk as he was doing homework. He was going to be sore in the morning.

“I know many things. It comes with the job of being the goodie-two-shoes conscience of something that is probably out of control. And is destroying alternate universes as he does dumb dream demon things.”

“Okay, what does that make you?”

“That makes me a liar. Of omission. Pretty neat, huh?” a look of mirth crossed the demon’s eye, trembling with a muted chuckle.

“When you refuse to give me your name, does this mean you’re lying by omission too?”

“Why do you want my name so badly? It’s not important.”

“Because you complain to me that you long for the day you will be free again. Maybe it will happen sooner if I just knew your name.”

“Trust me, ‘Master’; you don’t want to know. It’s traumatic for both parties.”

“I don’t trust you. You said it yourself; ‘Trust no one, document everything.’” Mason repeated, having refused to forget that line during those therapy sessions, at least.

“Well, I trust you to understand why I’m more than happy to just wait for the day your heart stops. Maybe it will, one day, after thirteen minutes.”

The chance for Mason to seize control over the demon is right there. It’s just a pity that he was too blind or even too deaf to know where it is.

~~

Mabel was caught up in the magical inferno that was the erasure of the dream demon during the collapse of Weirdmaggedon.

If Mason had it his way, he would torture the perpetrator in his head for it.

Except trying to do so now leads to him mentally crashing into a wall of steel.

He just… he just cannot.

Something about even trying felt _wrong_.

And even on the off chance that he did manage to inflict physical pain in a mental landscape, the demon only let out a soul shivering chortle. He would egg his master to continue, knowing well that he couldn’t bring himself to do it again.

Nothing like the image of a whimpering cry baby that Mason very vaguely managed to get back together, despite the repeated combs of amnesia from the therapist. Nothing like the submissive slave.

The demon was right; something broke in him the last time Mason went all out on torturing him, physically and mentally. Like a drug addict who had hit rock bottom, deciding that enough was enough, that he couldn’t allow it to continue, and the only way to go now was up. If Mason kept kicking the ladder in the pitfall down, then the demon would find another way out.

Even if it was shooting himself directly through the eye.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. But the dream demon lost his sense of consequence long before he pulled the trigger the first time.

~~

Another session with the therapist. Another prescription for a bottle of pills.

Pills that he initially didn’t take, until the dream demon suggested not to do so anyway. So, to spite the nose that fell off the Sphinx, Mason took them as prescribed.

He does not trust the demon in his head. Listening to him would be a fool’s errand. It made logical sense to play reverse psychology to the unnamed entity.

Not long after taking today’s dose though, he can see a chicken duck and weave between the crowds of feet.

“Hey. Where are you going?” Mason asked in spite of himself, following it anyway. Was it Clucks, the pet chicken of a blond girl whose face he can’t put a finger on? Wait, didn’t the blond in question perish in the inferno as well?

A few twists and turns, and he did not wind up back in front of his foster home. Instead, he finds himself in a dead end of an alley. A tall man, dressed in a light blue suit, and black dress pants, with blue hair and a black top hat which, on closer examination, showed had a squashed kink in it.

“Uh, hello?” Mason frowns, approaching with renewed confidence, “Are you lost?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” the figure answers back, straightening his posture. As the teen struggled to answer judging by the stutters due to the voice being eerily familiar, the figure continued. “Don’t bother. You recognize this voice. This appearance. Often seen begging for forgiveness. So, ‘Master’. Let me ask you once more.”

As the man turns around, Mason freezes. Then starts backing up in his numbing sense to get away. But the air felt suffocating.

“Do you even know _your own mind anymore?_ Or have you fallen head over heels into _yet another_ rabbit hole? _Which. One._ **_IS IT?_ **”

There was no telling what was on the man’s face. The psychotic Gleeful had no chance to register its appearance before he tripped over something. What should have been the concrete ground of the alleyway instead gave way to glass shattering as the view from above rapidly sinks.

~~

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. In spite of this, he has managed to find that not everything is as black and white as the dreamscape he has grown familiar to.

Landing on the ground, he finds himself standing at some kind of stop.

“Well, Pentagram. Looks like you’re waiting on a bus. Check the timetable.”

Before Mason could turn around to get a look at the owner of the voice, what he caught sight of was the bus stop sign instead. The demon was playing hide-and-give-cryptic-advice once again. Still playing reverse psychology, he decided against, instead opting to take in the view.

There was nothing but forest for miles around. All muted, of course. It was eerily quiet. If the madness were to filter in and corrupt it, life, or a twisted version of it, would flood in like water color by now.

After about ten minutes, Mason gives in and decides to check the time table. As for the bus he is waiting on, he had no idea where it would go. The next one would be here in about five minutes.

He was in the suit he last wore during the Weirdmaggedon. It was weird to say that he remembers the word, but not all the events that transpired. And especially the name of the demon who burned in the inferno.

Speaking of fire…

Mason perks up, hearing the wheels turn. The engine gave a hiss as it climbed uphill. The smoke rapidly approached him.

Smoke?

That isn’t right.

The bus he was waiting for, with the insides ablaze with the same amnestic fire, drove on past.

“Oh, that doesn’t look too good. An unqualified driver has taken the wheel. I would stop that if I were you, Pentagram.”

The demon without a name didn’t need to tell his ‘Master’ twice! Without thinking, Mason took off down the road as color flooded the Dreamscape, across a stream, jumping over chasms, and into his next big adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'll slam the breaks here. I'm gonna take some time to come up with character names in future chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> If anything seems well OOC for the Reverse Fall side of things, then pardon me for not being well versed in it.
> 
> And pardon the pun


End file.
